Never mind the polls—we’re convinced our candidate is going to win

How much do we value our own opinions? We're willing to believe that other …

Imagine you’re asked to do something out of the ordinary, like carry around a funny sign for a day or eat a food that doesn’t look so appetizing. Then you’re asked how many other people might say yes to the strange request. Past studies have shown that, if you agreed to carry the sign or eat the food, you’re much more likely to believe that lots of other people would say yes to the request too. Alternatively, if you declined, you’d probably think that the majority of people would say no. The same pattern holds true if you are asked about something like recycling; you’re more likely to believe that other people value recycling if you do.

This positive association between our beliefs and our perceptions of social beliefs—called “false consensus”—generally occurs when we don’t have a lot of information about what others might do or believe. When we don’t know what other people think, we tend to make assumptions based on our own preferences.

A group of researchers wondered whether the effect would occur when there is a lot of publicly available information about what other people think: during elections. Even with frequent and well-publicized political polls, are people’s beliefs about the outcome of an election tied to their own preferences?

The PNAS study used data from the Rand Corporation’s American Life Panel (ALP), a survey administered online to Americans 18 and older. In the fall of 2008, the ALP asked respondents how likely they were to vote for Barack Obama, John McCain, or a third candidate in the upcoming presidential election. Then, they were asked how likely each candidate was to win the election. In 2010, respondents were asked similar questions about the senatorial and gubernatorial elections in their home states.

In each instance, the false consensus effect occurred. The more a respondent favored a particular candidate, the higher they estimated his or her chances of winning the election. For instance, those who were positive they would not vote for Obama estimated his chances of winning the election at 40 percent, those who said they were equally torn between Obama and McCain estimated Obama’s chances at 51 percent. The people who were absolutely positive they would vote for Obama thought that there was a 65 percent chance he would become president. The results held true for both candidates, as well as for the state elections in 2010.

These patterns persisted no matter how the results were stratified: respondents of every age, race, and education level thought that their preferred candidate was more likely to win the election. When people changed their candidate preferences over time, their expectations about the outcome of the election shifted as well.

Researchers think that false consensus arises when people extrapolate their preferences to others when they don’t have much public information to go on. However, the effect in this instance is somewhat unexpected, since public opinions are well known thanks to political polling. The researchers acknowledge that the factors at work in this example of false consensus may not be the same ones behind other instances of the phenomenon.

In a statement that seems to apply as much to society in general as it does to this study, the researchers write, "It thus appears that Americans, despite having access to the same publicly available information, nevertheless inhabit disparate perceptual worlds."

This is why Democracy is a terrible system, even though it's the best we have come up with. Humans are, as a group, terrible decision makers and incapable of fairly and honestly weighing facts and possible solutions.

This is why Democracy is a terrible system, even though it's the best we have come up with. Humans are, as a group, terrible decision makers and incapable of fairly and honestly weighing facts and possible solutions.

Democracy typically works better because it usually allows the dumbasses on either side of an issue to cancel each other out.

It fails when there are so many dumbasses on either side that a compromise can't be reached. But gridlock is usually a much better form of failure then galloping down the wrong path.

Just because the pollsters know the score, doesn't mean that most people in the study know. This early in the game, most people don't even know who the candidates are, much less how they're doing in the primary process, even if it is publicly available.

This is why extremists (within both parties) think that if their guy is nominated, he will win the election for sure. They can't relate to any other point of view, so those views must be the minority.

Right now it's easy to point at the examples within the Republican party, but it's not specifically a right-vs-left issue. It's about extremes-vs-moderates on both sides.

Hmm, I think you may be onto something in regards to extremists. I support recycling and I recycle all that I can in my area, but I'm hardly under the delusion that most people in the world or even my city care about it. Perhaps a significant number, but I wouldn't venture anything beyond 30% (for example, as in to say: not the majority) - and even that may be a high figure. As far as the US presidential candidate goes, I may be strongly in support of one side and really not want the other candidates to win, but I'm under no delusion that the split is going to be close to 50/50 for the two major parties and I'm not even willing to hazard a guess as to who will win. I just can't imagine a viewpoint wherein since I have one opinion on something that I somehow think that I'm part of a majority. I'll think that someone else certainly shares my view, but without researching it, again I wouldn't hazard a guess. If I don't know, I don't know and guessing by putting a random number on something isn't going to gain me anything, so why would I do it? Better to start researching it, as typically, there's information out there to be found somewhere that will at least be partially instructive.

This is why Democracy is a terrible system, even though it's the best we have come up with. Humans are, as a group, terrible decision makers and incapable of fairly and honestly weighing facts and possible solutions.

Well it does not help that modern politics have stropped trying to talk facts and instead supply focus group tested sound bites in a very overt grasp for populism.

People (in general) don't follow polls, they follow what their friends (and to a lesser extent, coworkers, and family) say. And your political views are very highly correlated with your friends political views (that's why you're friends.) In other words, the consensus you perceive isn't false. Your perceptions are simply limited.

Just another example of confirmation bias. If You think something is good, most other people must as well (since You can not possibly be mistaken, and most other people are not morons).

The thing is, most people ARE morons: The average IQ is 100, and IQ is skewed ever so slightly to the right (since there are several people, at least one confirmed, with a 200+ IQ, and absolutely nobody with less than 0), meaning that a very slight majority of people are actually under an IQ of 100.

And, if you deal with people with an IQ of right around 100 very often, you should know that they are morons.

I don't hold polls of a few thousand people as indicative of anything regardless of one's point of view, even less reliable when you factor in the absolute bias you see for any story with political relevance on almost every US news outlet.

That said, combine an ignorant (or worse politically biased ) media with a ever less educated public and you are well on the road to "Idiocracy". Welcome to Costco...I love you.

I take one issue with your commentary and, I am guessing, the PNAS paper you extrapolated from (I don't have a login):

Quote:

However, the effect in this instance is somewhat unexpected, since public opinions are well known thanks to political polling.

No, public opinions are not known. What is known are the results of a poll. Some polls have a high correlation to how an election turns out, but rarely do they have a high correlation to overall public opinion. At least, I have not seen any scientific evidence that poll results can be extrapolated to all of America, much less to the much-smaller voting population.

I would guess that is why the behavior occurs. For instance, I would like to think that there are many more non-voters like me who agree. The problem is, if we don't vote in numbers, do we matter? Nope. This helps explain it at a national level where poll results are known, and that reasoning would appear to hold true down to the most local levels. I wager there are a ton of people who think our HOA rules are god-awful, but the last HOA meeting I went to, I was the only one there. There wasn't even a quorum available to vote on anything. So what really is the public opinion in such circumstances? Polls are only a model, not reality.

While Kate Shaw, whose articles I wish I saw more of, did not mention it directly.. This reminds me a lot of Jacqui Cheng's Brand vs Self-Image article.

You have an opinion. You think you are right. You would like to believe the bulk of the population is intelligent to come up with the same thought proof as you are.

I wonder if there's a correlation.

*To continue my own thoughts: I wonder how those people who believed their candidate would win would react if the pollster had've said something very negative about their candidate (even something dishonest), "Do you believe the allegations of bribery surrounding his campaign initiatives?"

The thing is, most people ARE morons: The average IQ is 100, and IQ is skewed ever so slightly to the right (since there are several people, at least one confirmed, with a 200+ IQ, and absolutely nobody with less than 0), meaning that a very slight majority of people are actually under an IQ of 100.

And, if you deal with people with an IQ of right around 100 very often, you should know that they are morons.

Just another example of confirmation bias. If You think something is good, most other people must as well (since You can not possibly be mistaken, and most other people are not morons).

The thing is, most people ARE morons: The average IQ is 100, and IQ is skewed ever so slightly to the right (since there are several people, at least one confirmed, with a 200+ IQ, and absolutely nobody with less than 0), meaning that a very slight majority of people are actually under an IQ of 100.

And, if you deal with people with an IQ of right around 100 very often, you should know that they are morons.

Intelligence quotient is a Bell Curve, so you just made yourself look pretty stupid.

But in reality, most political battles are between cultures, not "stupid vs intelligent". In the case of the USA, it's rural vs urban cultures. Lately, we have a suburban culture that's complicating things and making the issues more polarized, because they want to try to be BOTH cultures but can't.

So, if you're going to make fun of someone, put down the confused suburban yuppies.

What's wrong with me then? I almost always "know" my candidate is going to lose (stupid libertarian ideology). Plus, I'm a Cubs fan (not really... but I am a Purdue fan, which is a close second in lovable loserdom). Maybe I've got the reverse going on. I'm such a cynic.

This doesn't really seem like news... from anytime in the last century. How old is the saying "rose-tinted glasses?" People see what they want to see, and somehow I doubt it's mostly because they don't know what other people want.

For instance, those who were positive they would not vote for Obama estimated his chances of winning the election at 40 percent, those who said they were equally torn between Obama and McCain estimated Obama’s chances at 51 percent. The people who were absolutely positive they would vote for Obama thought that there was a 65 percent chance he would become president. The results held true for both candidates, as well as for the state elections in 2010.

I'd like to know if they separated the people who were voting for a candidate from the people who were voting against a candidate. These days many people vote against candidates, not for candidates.

This is why Democracy is a terrible system, even though it's the best we have come up with. Humans are, as a group, terrible decision makers and incapable of fairly and honestly weighing facts and possible solutions.

The alternative to having lots of humans in charge is having just a few of them in charge. Given the sorts of people who tend to take over things, I think that is worse.

If it wasn't for all the voter scam that is going on these days... in Iowa, Maine and now is Ohio. There are votes that were gone to the spam folder, dead people voting, some county voters ignored... Also poll results were being sent out before people even voted!

Not to forget that a recount was done in Iowa and Santorum was found to be the winner and not Mitt.

Do you guys still want to believe that it is not rigged and that people who believe the results are wrong are idiots? That is what sounds silly and ignorant to me.

Kate Shaw Yoshida / Kate is a science writer for Ars Technica. She recently earned a dual Ph.D. in Zoology and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior from Michigan State University, studying the social behavior of wild spotted hyenas.